Disgraced NASCAR driver Hmiel had turned his life around

In 2004, I was at a NASCAR Camping world truck series event commiserating with a driver I knew well. "I was doing OK," he said, "until Crack Boy got into me."

Crack Boy? He pointed to driver Shane Hmiel's truck.

"He's out of control," the driver said.

By that time, NASCAR driver Hmiel had already failed one drug test. He was suspended from September of 2003, reinstated in early 2004. In June, 2005, he failed another drug test administered after NASCAR officials observed Hmiel making "erratic moves" on the track. He was suspended. NASCAR said that he could be reinstated in 2007, if he followed the prescribed rehabilitation program. He did not. In February of 2006, he failed his third and last, drug test. Three strikes and you're out. Hmiel, said NASCAR, was "banned for life."

Many were disappointed, but few insiders were surprised. Hmeil, always aggressive on track, sometimes went too far. His best-known incident came in the April 2005 Nationwide race at Bristol Motor Speedway. Hmiel, ninth in series points, shoved three drivers out of the way, including Kenny Wallace and Clint Bowyer, and then three laps from the end, running 13th, he hit 12th-place Dale Jarrett, turned him sideways, and appeared to accelerate until Jarrett spun into the wall. The race was stopped, and Jarrett, the 1999 Sprint Cup champion, walked over to Hmiel's car. On live television from his in-car camera, Hmiel gave the veteran driver the middle-finger salute. Hmiel was fined $10,000 and read a half-hearted apology at the next race.

So, in February 2006, Shane Hmiel's career appeared over. The son of Steve Hmiel, a respected crew chief who at the time worked for Dale Earnhardt Inc. and now runs the NASCAR operations for Target Chip Ganassi, is not the only driver to fail a drug test.

It is what happened afterward to Shane Hmiel that is different. Fellow NASCAR driver Aaron Fike was suspended after being arrested in 2007 for possession of heroin. Fike has dropped out of sight. Driver Kevin Grubb had competed in NASCAR since 1997, but failed a drug test in 2004. He was reinstated in 2006, but was suspended again later that year when he refused to take a drug test. He never raced in NASCAR again. In May 2009, he shot himself in the head in a Virginia motel room. Grubb was 31.

So what did Shane Hmiel do?

He got better. He turned his life around. He got clean and sober, and has stayed that way for more than four years. Hmiel was diagnosed as bipolar, and learned he had been trying to medicate himself. With the proper prescription medication, he was a different person.

He began racing in the three United States Auto Club series, which are front engine, open-wheel cars that compete on dirt tracks and on pavement. In equipment that has seldom been the best, and having no experience in that kind of old-school racing, Hmiel quietly learned, and learned well. Hmeil has been winning races, including the prestigious Hoosier Hundred at the historic mile-long Indianapolis State Fairgrounds. In victory lane, Hmiel cried.

Last weekend, people were crying for Shane Hmiel. Saturday afternoon, qualifying a USAC Silver Crown car at the Terra Haute Action Track in Indiana -- a fast, brutal dirt oval -- Hmiel's car "bicycled" on the two right-side tires as he steered between turns three and four. He corrected, but it was too late -- the car flipped sideways, and the roll cage smashed directly into the concrete wall. In Silver Crown cars, the driver's head is less than a foot from the top of the steel-barred roll cage.

When the car came to rest, the cage was smashed in. The crowd was quiet, certain they'd just seen a driver die. Somehow Hmiel survived. He was unconscious, with a broken neck and back. He was airlifted to the hospital, placed in a medically-induced coma, and then the long series of surgeries began.

Stunningly, so far, so good, with no signs of paralysis. One reason may be that Hmiel, 30, has been working out in an Indianapolis gym regularly, preparing for a move in 2011 to the Indy Lights series, then possibly to the Izod IndyCar Series.

That will have to wait. Likely for along time.

Hmiel's dad, Steve, was with the Ganassi team at the Sprint Cup race in California when his son crashed. Ganassi driver Juan Pablo Montoya loaned Hmiel his jet, and he flew to be at his son's side. Shane's mother, Lisa, started a Facebook page -- Shane-Hmiel-Road-To-Recovery -- where she posts terse but hopeful updates: "Had comfortable night. Looks good and moved both arms on command. Thanks for prayers and keep them coming."

Auto racing's best comeback story is not over, but it is on hold. Last February, Hmiel was racing at East Bay Raceway Park near Tampa, where he stood patiently in the dark, muddy pits as people walked by between races and pointed: Yes, that's the guy who screwed up. Hmiel could not have been nicer, or more humble.

NASCAR Sprint Cup driver Carl Edwards knows the USAC Silver Crown series -- he was a driver, and he is still a team owner -- and he knows Hmiel. "Shane is one of the nicest, most decent people that I've met in this sport," Edwards said Tuesday. "I think I speak for everyone in the garage -- we are all thinking about Shane, and hoping that he comes out of this just fine. Knowing Shane, it's hard to imagine him in any sort of physical pain. The guy is just an upbeat, outgoing guy. This is a tragic event, and hopefully it will have a happy ending."